


Tongue-tied

by AngelofDarkness1605



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 01:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5397785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelofDarkness1605/pseuds/AngelofDarkness1605
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Gold is a babbling mess after two particularly unfortunate mishaps with Belle French, the woman he is convinced will never love him back. Luckily, Belle has the perfect way to clear up all their misunderstandings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tongue-tied

It's ridiculous, really. He is Mr. Gold, the most powerful and most feared man in town. It's not that he isn't afraid of anything – because he very much  _is_  – but he has plenty of money and power to compensate for that.

Except that there's this one woman – this one kind, intelligent and  _gorgeous_ woman – named Belle French who makes him tremble and stutter like he did before he had any wealth or influence.

Belle is as generous, loving and  _good_ as he is selfish, cold-hearted and... well,  _not_ good. She is his friend, somehow, has been for years now, and it would have been perfect if only he hadn't fallen madly in love with her somewhere along the way.

It's nothing but a miracle that she seems to be as enthusiastic about spending time with him as he is himself. Even in his least pessimistic moods however, Mr. Gold knows only too well that she wouldn't want to have anything to do with him anymore after all if she were to know that he has grown to crave so much more than only her friendship.

That makes sharing meals with her and taking walks with her through town not nearly as easy as it once was, but the landlord wouldn't have it any other way. After all, every smile of hers, every brush of her arm against his and every kindly spoken word is a beacon of light in the misery that is his life, even though she can't ever know in any way that their contact means yet more to him than she thinks.

So when the two of them make their way to Granny's for dinner once again, Mr. Gold makes certain not to notice how her cheeks are flushed with the chilliness of the evening, how her coat compliments her figure and how her eyes sparkle when she looks at him.

What he does do is open the door for her, like he always does. A harsh, cold man he may be, but at least he knows how to treat a lady… or at least, when he isn't too stunned by the loveliness of said lady. They reach the door to the diner more quickly than he expected and he has to rush forward in order to be the one to open it.

It seems that he is right in time after all. But then he withdraws a bit too hurriedly after he has opened the door to let Belle move through it first, ending up brushing the back of his hand along the swell of her breast.

He freezes the second he touches her so very inappropriately, his hand to his horror remaining right where it very much shouldn't be even as he is inwardly screaming at himself to lower his arm. Belle however moves right on, into the diner, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened at all.

For one horrifying, glorious second that movement causes the unintended but to a treacherous part of him not  _entirely_ unwanted contact to increase, her warmth and incredible softness unmistakable despite the fabric of her clothes between their skin.

Mr. Gold is rooted to the ground until she keeps the door open for him and looks back at him over her shoulder with what couldn't possibly be an inviting smile. Instinctively, he follows her into the diner after all, where a considerable amount of people is gathered.

But once they're inside, he can no longer ignore what he just did, already imaging the very awkward incident driving a rift between them, for as far as it hasn't done so already.

"I'm so very sorry, Miss French," he blurts out to get her attention when she looks around for a free table, automatically switching back to the way he formally addressed her for a long time. "I… I wish I could undo what I just did, but I obviously can't. I don't know how to make you feel better."

"If you're referring about accidentally touching me when you opened the door for me, there's nothing to apologize for or worry about. I know you didn't do it on purpose."

"But…"

"Your touch  _was_ an accident, wasn't it?" she asks, looking intently at him and biting her lip in a way that makes him wonder for one ridiculous fraction of a second if she might ask him to touch so intimately her again, this time very much on purpose.

"Of course it was an accident!" he cries out. "Is there a way I can make it right?! Please, I… Please know that our friendship means very much to me. I don't want to lose it. I don't want to lose  _you_. I don't ever want you to be uncomfortable, especially not because of something I did. You're my best wife and I…"

He stills when she tenses, hardly surprised and almost relieved that she isn't getting over his inappropriate touch so easily after all - or at least, until she looks at him with surprise and something which appears to be  _hope_.

"What did you just say?!" she whispers, her words urgent despite the low volume with which they are spoken.

"I said that our friendship means the world to me and that I couldn't bear to lose it, especially not by making you uncomfortable," he says hesitantly, not knowing whether it's a bad thing or not that she wants him to repeat himself. "You're my best friend, Miss French."

"Your best  _friend_?" she asks, her voice carrying an edge of a kind he can't identify.

"Yes, you're my best friend," he says, his voice quivering when it dawns on him that he has never told her before, that their friendship is a second topic on which he has never shared the true depths of his feelings for her.

"That's not what you said at first," she says, stepping slightly closer towards him, a tremble in her voice as well.

Mr. Gold's eyes widen and he stares at her in utter horror when he replays his words in his head, this way hearing himself call her his  _wife_ after all. It finally dawns on him what he just accidentally said to her, the single word he misspoke potentially ruining everything that his equally unintentional touch somehow did not.

"I… I'm so very, very sorry, Miss French," he rasps, looking helplessly at her. "I… I obviously misspoke because you are  _clearly_ not my wife. I…"

There's so much more he wants to say, so much more he  _should_ say now that he accidentally referred to the previously thankfully oblivious love of his life as his  _wife_ , who doubtlessly wouldn't want to have anything to do with him any longer if she were to find out that he's desperately in love with her.

"It's no problem, Mr. Gold," she says, looking at him considerably more closely than she did when he was apologizing for accidentally brushing his hand against her breast. "After all, like you said, you just misspoke."

"Indeed, it's exactly like that," he mutters through clenched teeth, lowering his gaze as he can no longer bear to look at her while saying this not quite truth.

Indeed, the landlord would have sunk down on his knees in front of her to beg her forgiveness for his slip of tongue and accidental touch if he wasn't petrified by what he just carelessly said.

"It's just that…Mr. Gold, you're usually so very eloquent. I suppose it's… unusual to hear you misspeak like this."

"Is it?!" he all but squeaks, very unwelcome droplets of perspiration welling up all over his body.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that was a Freudian slip," Belle says with terrifying purposefulness.

"Miss French, I…"

At this point, the landlord doesn't even know what he tries to say any longer, how he might salvage anything of their friendship or even their acquaintance… and he can't think anymore  _at all_ when she steps yet closer towards him.

"Please, Miss French," he mutters in confusion, his treacherous eyes drifting to her lips for the briefest of moments now that she's closer to him than she has ever been before, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable…"

"Believe me, you're not," she murmurs, her own gaze drifting down as well.

The knowledge that she can't possibly be looking at his lips even as it really seems that she's actually doing so only adds to his confusion. Mr. Gold doesn't understand what is happening at all… or rather, he doesn't see why she is still here, right with him, rather than getting as far away from him as quickly as she possibly can now that he might as well have told her after all that he's in love with her… that he wishes that the two of them were married, to be husband and wife for the rest of their lives.

None of that bewilderment could have prepared him whatsoever however for what Belle does next, firmly slanting her lips over his and locking her arms around his neck like he thought could only happen in his most forbidden fantasies.

But no matter how unlikely it is that she is  _kissing_ him, there's nothing imaginary about the pressure of her lips against his, soft but undeniable, of the way her nose presses against his and her hands are behind his neck.

His eyes wide open as his heart all but hammers its way out of his chest, all the landlord can do is stand there with his hands hanging limply at his side. His mind is even unable to decide whether to try to find out how this can possibly be happening or to commit to memory as much as possible of this extraordinary experience.

It turns out that he doesn't succeed at all with either of those options, for all he can do is continue standing there like a complete fool when she abruptly withdraws from him, still having no idea whatsoever what could have possibly driven her to do what she just did - or what it actually felt like.

They breathlessly stare at one another for what feels like minutes, oblivious that each and every bewildered patron at Granny's is doing the exact same thing. Although he knows only too well that there's  _no way_ that the wonderful Belle French actually kissed him, he  _also_ knows that the incredible woman did exactly that.

"Please tell me that I just didn't assault you or make you uncomfortable in any other way," she says at length, breaking the heavy silence. "I thought you hoped that I would… I thought you  _wanted_ me to kiss you, but now you're looking at me like you don't even know me and it's… it's unnerving."

Although it may appear that there's an explanation of sorts buried somewhere in her frantically spoken words, Mr. Gold can make yet less sense of the situation as she desperately looks at him while taking a considerable step away from him.

"I've wanted to kiss you for… well, for longer than I like to be reminded of, so maybe I was only projecting my feelings onto you. I mean, I… I  _probably_ was, only seeing what I wanted to see," she babbles, moving her hands in a pleading, helpless gesture. "Because it's obvious that you aren't interested in being more than friends with me, I  _know_ that, because you never give any sign  _at all_ that you like me that way. But you got so upset when you accidentally touched me and you referred to me as your  _wife_ and you looked at my lips and for a moment I really,  _really_ thought that you wanted the two of us to kiss as badly as I did and I…"

"I did," he breathes, still not understanding how any of this can be real. But it finally starts to dawn on him that this could be the very moment he has hoped for for a considerable time. "Belle, I  _did_ want us to kiss. I  _do_. It's just that I was convinced that you would never want to kiss  _me ._ And when you did, I didn't realize what was happening and…"

"And what?" she asks, very quietly, stepping towards him again.

"I didn't know what to do," he murmurs, looking at her helplessly. "I'm not good at these things. I barely know how to be your friend, let alone… you know that, don't you?"

No matter how difficult it is to remind her that he isn't good at interacting with anyone in a positive manner, let alone the woman who means so very much to him and whom he couldn't  _bear_ to make even the slightest bit of unhappy, telling her of his flaws is exactly what the landlord does. It's for the best, really, to remind her of what sort of man he is before he inevitably ends up doing all the wrong things.

"All I know is that no one has been so kind and generous with me for a long time as you have been," she replies to his ever increasing bewilderment, "and that I can't spend another minute not kissing you. So…"

"So…" he echoes dumbly, once again not understanding at all what she's saying.

"I guess I'd better ask this time whether you'd like me to kiss you before I throw myself at you," she says, her cheeks reddening in a wonderfully maddening way.

"You… you are asking me if you can kiss me?" he inquires hoarsely.

"I am," she breathes, resting her hands on his chest.

"Yes," he mutters, ever so bewildered and terrified and half delirious with happiness, " _yes!_ "

When she all but launches herself into his arms and crashes her mouth against him for a second time in the span of as many minutes, Mr. Gold somehow knows exactly what to do. This time, his arms go around her like hers go around him, one hand coming to rest on her cheek and the other settling on the impossible softness of her waist. This time, he presses his lips against hers as well, tasting her for the very first time.

Their kiss is probably messy and clumsy, or at least his part in it, but Belle doesn't seem to object. If anything, she becomes yet more enthusiastic as their tongues tentatively meet, tightening her hold on him and deepening their kiss.

The sheer lack of air in their lungs causes them to break away slightly from one another eventually, although their hands remain right where they are. Her chest heaving as she's breathing as heavily as he is himself, they're once more staring at one another.

This time, his lingering disbelief is accompanied by a grin, the two of them smiling widely at one another because of what they just did. Both of them are oblivious that the eyes of each and every patron in the diner are focused on them, that cutlery is cluttering from suddenly frozen hands here and there.

"How about we continue this somewhere more comfortable?" she suggests in a whisper, glancing at his mouth before her sparkling eyes meet his again.

"I'd like that very, very much," the landlord replies just as softly, very happily following her when Belle practically drags him out of the diner, towards the blissful quietness of the back room of his shop across the street.


End file.
